


Gotham West High

by ladysunflower



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Crush, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 19:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3332351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysunflower/pseuds/ladysunflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike Carter isn't sure where the new kid came from, but together they're going to rule the school. High School AU, one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gotham West High

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a gift for DoctorV for the Blue and Gold Winter 2009 Ficathon (a Livejournal community @boostlethon).

Michael Jon Carter’s head impacted the ground hard and a heavy weight fell upon him, his vision going dark for just a moment. Then he sucked air, his sides painfully heaving as he spit out bits of grass and dirt when he could catch his breath. In that moment, he couldn’t remember who or where he was, but just as quickly as the confusion came, it went, and the weight lifted from him amongst angry shouts from those around him.

“Are you trying to kill him, Helzinger?” Coach Hills shouted, pulling the burly boy back further away from Mike before kneeling down beside him. “Anything hurt, Carter?”

That seemed like such a stupid question to Mike – _everything_ hurt. But he pulled his legs up under his body and slowly lifted himself from the field, and though his body protested the movement enough to force a groan out of him, he had been in enough bad tackles to know that this had not been one of the worst. He got to his feet and brushed the turf that was stuck to his facemask, and looked over to the kid who had tackled him.

The assistant coach had an arm around Aaron Helzinger and was talking to him in low tones, occasionally pushing his other hand out in front of his waist in an upwards motion. Whatever he was being told about correct tackling techniques, Helzinger seemed to not be listening, his eyes locked on Mike’s – and though his helmet partially covered his face, Mike couldn’t help but feel that Helzinger had a vicious little smirk on his mouth. ‘What crawled up his ass and died,’ Mike wondered.

He quickly looked around them and saw that the rest of the team had abandoned their drills and were hanging back from the scene in a semi-circle. All that shouting had probably been the coaches making them move back in case he was injured.

“I’m fine, Coach. Just winded,” Mike said, turning his attention to Coach Hills. Coach didn’t look too convinced, eyeing Mike up and down critically.

“He caught you right across the shoulders. I swear that boy hasn’t got a lick of sense.”

Mike could agree that Helzinger wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but he had a pretty good idea stupidity wasn’t to blame for this. Still, he kept his mouth shut over it. “That was a great tackle, though, Coach,” he offered, rubbing his shoulder wearily.

“No it wasn’t – it was sloppy and he’d be lucky if a ref didn’t call penalty in a game, let alone if he didn’t actually manage to injure someone. Alright, Carter, go take ten and get some water. Richards!” he suddenly shouted, to which another boy in a blue practice vest bolted ramrod straight upon hearing his name called. “You’re paired with Helzinger. Everyone back to their drills!”

Mike tried to hide the dull pain that spread through his sides as he walked over to the water cooler. He could tell he would have some bruising across his ribs, but it shouldn’t be too serious, and if nothing was broken, he certainly wasn’t going to admit to some minor injuries that could keep him from playing in next Friday’s game.

He pulled off his helmet and drank two full cups of water before sitting down heavily on the bench, but instead of facing the field, he turned towards the end of the track where the cheerleaders were stretching.

Mike spent a good two minutes enjoying the view before the one blonde girl his eyes had been trying to avoid caught sight of him and bounced up, calling to her coach before jogging over to him. Mike bit back a groan as his sister Michelle plopped down on the bench next to him.

“That was quite a hit you took, Mikey,” she teased, before her face turned serious. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he dismissed, shrugging off her concern. “She just lets you run off like that?” he asked, tilting his head towards the cheerleading coach.

“Oh yea, Stephanie is way cool like that. We’re done with drills for the day, anyway.” Michelle mirrored his shrug, before grabbing his cup and climbing off the bench to fill it from the water cooler. As she got up, Mike looked back over to the other cheerleaders, and noticed a particularly cute redhead – Barbara Gordon, the girl he’d had a crush on for two years – chatting with some brown-haired kid that Mike was pretty sure he hadn’t seen before. The kid had one of the stand’s electrical boxes open and was fiddling around with something inside while he talked to Barbara, seemingly engrossed with the task in front of him but keeping the conversation going with the redhead at the same time.

“Hey, Shel, who’s that kid talking to Gordon?” he asked when his sister sat back down next to him, and she twisted around to see where he was pointing.

“Oh, him? He’s some new kid from Chicago; I think his parents got divorced or something. Tim or Ted or Todd or something. I don’t know. I think he joined the AV Club like right from the start, and Babs said he’s in Algebra II with her. Complete with the fact that I’m almost positive he’s wearing a pocket protector, it’s like he decided his mission upon coming to Gotham West was to be Nerd of the Year.” She made a tsking sound, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she turned back to Mike, and her eyes suddenly gleamed mischievously. “Why, you think he’s cute?”

Mike felt the blood drain from his face at her sudden question, and he nervously darted his eyes around to check that no one was near enough to hear. He ducked his head in close to his sister and hissed at her, “Will you shut up? I can’t believe you just said that!”

“What?” she asked innocently. “I wasn’t the one who said that the Flash had a nice –“ but he surged forward and grasped his hand over her mouth, cutting her off.

Mike regretted more and more the words that had inadvertently slipped out his mouth when the two had seen the Justice League takedown Solomon Grundy in Robinson Park last year. Superman, the Flash, Batman and Wonder Woman had all been there, and the news had said that Grundy was being mind-controlled by some evil sorcerer to boot, so the battle had been pretty spectacular to watch until some other heroes had shown up to do crowd control.

After the battle, Superman and the Flash had stuck around to sign autographs for the crowd, but neither Michelle or Mike had had anything on them to sign (and Mike had convinced Shel that he was pretty sure that Superman would not sign a grown woman’s cleavage, let alone a fourteen year-old girl’s.) On the walk home, Michelle had gushed on and on about Superman, and how the Flash hadn’t looked anywhere near as good as he did in the papers, to which Mike’s fateful defense of the Flash’s posterior had slipped out of his mouth before he had even a moment to process what he was saying. Michelle had squealed, claimed she’d always known it, and wouldn’t let him take it back.

Mike really wished he was a time traveler, and could go back in time and change it so that he’d never made that comment at all. Michelle kept teasing him about it completely inappropriate moments (which was any time, really), and someday someone would overhear them and it would be all over for Mike.

“I _still_ like girls, you know,” he said to her squarely, and she nodded, her giggles muffled by the hand still over her mouth. “Like Gordon. C’mon, you know I like her. Why don’t you put in a good word for me with her?” Mike asked, removing his hand and throwing his glance over his sister’s shoulder to the redhead.

“Yea, I would stay away from her if I were you,” Michelle said, rolling her eyes.

“What? Why?” he asked, returning his attention to her.

“Because she’s Dick’s girl,” she said, as if that were warning enough.

“What, Grayson?” his eyes slid back over to the football field, where Dick Grayson and the reserve kicker were doing punting drills with the target nets. Grayson was shorter than Mike by a good six inches, and though certainly wasn’t skimpy, didn’t nearly seem to have quite as much bulk as the other guys on the field. And Mike got pummeled by them all day. Grayson was light on his feet, and had enough grace that Mike figured he could probably dodge any punches thrown, but at the same time, Mike had a hard time believing Grayson could deck out as much as Mike could take. Plus, Mike had never seen Grayson get in a fight in the two years he’d known him; he didn’t seem like the fighting type at all. “Him? I could take him.”

“Yeah, whatever. Look, I’m going to the mall with the girls after practice. Tell mom I won’t be home until late.”

“Call her and tell her yourself. I’m not your messenger boy,” he replied, shoving her at the slight.

“If you tell her, she can’t tell me I can’t go. So thanks, bro,” she said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, which earned her another shoving. She laughed and jumped up, running back over to the other girls, who were now standing in a huddle talking. Gordon and the new kid were nowhere to be seen, and Mike jealously wondered where they’d gone to.

“CARTER!” Coach Hills yelled, causing Mike to jerk his head back around to the field. “Stop lollygagging! We need you to throw for receiving drills!”

“Be right there, Coach!” he called back, grabbing his helmet and jogging back onto the field, ready for another hour of punishment and hoping that the pain in his sides didn’t get any worse.

 

***********************************************

 

Mike didn’t know how he had actually managed to be that oblivious, but the new kid had apparently been sitting three seats back in his World History class. Wasn’t Mr. Garrett supposed to introduce the new kids or something? He tried to think back, trying to remember if Mr. Garrett had done so while he was distracted with the only thing World History class had to offer that was worth paying attention to – the view he had of Donna Troy’s legs and back. Otherwise, the class was free nap time.

It was a futile effort on his part.

“Kord,” Mr. Garrett was saying, “since you’re new I let it go last week, but you don’t have a partner for our weekly assignments. Looks like I am finally going to have to break up the ménage à trios.” The class broke out into snickers, even though Mike was certain at least half of them didn’t know what that phrase meant except that Garrett always used it to refer to Mike’s group with Victor Stone and Garfield Logan.

Garrett was eyeing the three of them over, trying to decide which one to pair with Kord. His eyes finally settled on Mike, who by now had realized that he was no longer going to be able to slack off while Stone did all of the work. “Carter, you’ll be paired with Kord from now on. Class,” he said, lifting his eyes to address everyone else, “I’ve given you all a lot of leeway when it comes to choosing which assignment types from the syllabus you’ll be doing each week, but please remember that with written assignments you must trade off who writes. If you think I can’t tell that it’s the same person writing the assignments each week,” he paused, leveling a glare at them, “you are gravely mistaken.”

With almost perfect timing, the bell rang, and the class was a flurry of activity as everyone gathered their things together. Mike was glad that World History was the last class of the day; his ribs had been killing him since practice yesterday, and all he wanted to do was go home, put some ice on them, and watch cartoons.

Kord was having none of it, though. “Carter!” the kid called as Mike sped out of the classroom. “Hey, Carter, wait up!” Against his better judgment, Mike paused and waited for the other boy to catch up.

Mike hadn’t really gotten a good look at him yesterday during practice, but as Kord hurried to him, Mike realized there really wasn’t much to look at. Kord was shorter than him (but then again, a lot of kids were) with tousled brown hair and something of a Jewish nose. And – holy hell, he actually _was_ wearing a pocket protector. Mike didn’t have the time to feel embarrassed by being seen with him because as the kid approached, Mike was suddenly struck with how ridiculously blue Kord’s eyes were, and lost all sense of his surroundings.

Mike felt something nearing dread as he found himself unable to look anywhere else as Kord paused a couple feet from him and held out his hand. “I’m Ted, by the way,” Kord said, and Mike found himself reaching forward to actually shake the other boy’s hand. He’d never shaken the hand of anyone who wasn’t an adult before, and he was surprised at how firmly Kord grasped his hand – as if shaking people’s hands was something he did on a regular basis.

“Michael Carter,” Mike replied. “But, uh, call me Mike.”

“Mike,” Kord repeated, giving his hand one last press before dropping it, and Mike couldn’t help but wonder if all the kids in Chicago acted so grown up to each other, or if this was just the way Kord was. “What assignments has your group done so far?”

Mike shifted his bag and turned to walk away, but Kord quickly fell into step beside him. “We usually just did the comparison essay. One person summarized each topic and the last person did the comparison.” Actually, Stone had done everything while Logan and him had goofed off, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been willing to help - Stone had insisted on doing it all by himself. Even though Stone was a linebacker for the football team and got on well enough there, he seemed to resent the fact that he was being forced to work with others on a homework assignment; like he didn’t like working with a group for anything. Mike couldn’t help but feel a bit of envy for Logan now; he was sure Kord wasn’t going to let him off the hook for the homework like that.

“Sounds boring,” Kord complained. “I’ve never been to the Gotham Museum. Would you want to do the assignment for it? Seems easy enough – visit the museum, do the tour, have them sign off that you were there, write a short blurb about what you learned.”

Mike thought the museum was the idea that sounded the _most_ boring – not to mention the Gotham Museum had been a once a year fieldtrip all through elementary school and junior high, so Mike had already seen much more of it than anyone could possibly want to.

“Sure, whatever. Look, I have to get home. Let’s do the museum thing on Saturday, cool?” Mike asked once they were out in front of the school. Suddenly, he felt very self-conscious that his walk home would take him towards the low-income northern part of the city, while most of the kids walking home headed south and west. He hoped Kord didn’t want to walk with him or anything.

“Okay. What’s your e-mail address?” Kord asked, pulling out a pen and a scrap of paper.

Mike felt his ears go red. “I don’t – I don’t have an e-mail,” he stammered.

Kord didn’t look like he believed him. “C’mon, everyone has e-mail…don’t you even have a computer?”

“Of course I do,” Mike lied. He actually completed his written assignments at the public library when he needed to; otherwise, he never had much use for a computer, and his mom couldn’t afford to buy one, anyway. “I just never really cared about that Internet stuff. I’ll just meet you in front of the museum on Saturday at what, like ten?”

“Ooookay, sure,” Kord said, his eyes narrowed in such a way that Mike was certain Kord knew he was lying. But then something caught the boy’s eyes, and Mike turned to see a black townscar pull up to the curb nearby. A man in a grey wool suit exited the driver’s side and came around to open the back passenger door, looking at Kord expectantly. “Ah, there’s my ride. See you tomorrow, Mike!”

The boy flashed him a grin, which caused Mike’s stomach to do a small flip, before getting into the townscar, the man smoothly shutting the door behind Kord once he was inside. Mike was left standing there as the man re-entered the car and pulled away from the curb, somehow feeling foolish and embarrassed and only vaguely understanding why.

Gotham West had kids from all sorts of income levels, from the super rich to the lower middle class, but none of the kids lived as far north as Mike and Michelle did. Mike had been scouted in junior high for football, and that was the only reason they attended Gotham West instead of Old Gotham High – and even then, Coach Hills had only managed that because the Carters lived south of Sprang River. Had they lived on the other side, there was no way they could afford to take the ferry or rail to school every day, and their mom worked two jobs and certainly couldn’t drive them to school.

Still, kids who got their own chauffeurs wasn’t something West had a lot of, and Mike wondered why Kord wasn’t going to Gotham South Central where most of the super rich lived, or sent their kids if they lived north of the Finger River. He shrugged, turning and trudging his way north to go home, letting his thoughts wander elsewhere.

The walk was always so boring without Shel, especially since more and more she was hanging out with her friends after school and getting a ride home from them. Mike was certain Michelle didn’t actually have them drive her all the way home – rather, she probably had them drop her off at the Arena and she walked the rest of the way, which worried Mike. Despite the fact that costumed vigilantes swooped around at night stopping crime, Gotham after dark was hardly the place that anyone, let alone a fifteen year-old girl, should be walking around alone in – especially so close to the Sprang as they were. But Mike couldn’t blame Michelle for being embarrassed; it’s not like he wasn’t.

Mike kept an eye out for Help Wanted signs - even though he wasn't old enough to get a job, he desperately needed his own spending money. Gotham City was strict in its child labor laws, and unfortunately he couldn’t get a job for another four months until he turned sixteen. Even then, he wouldn’t be able to work too many hours – he had school, and more importantly, football to worry about. Football was not only how he got into West, it was going to be his ticket into Gotham University. And Mike fully intended to go all the way to the professional league if he could, with all the fame, glory and, most importantly, money that came with being a star quarterback. While Mike knew he could be better at school if he tried, he knew he would never be good enough to get into college on a scholarship, and he certainly was never going to be as good at school as he was at football. And he was very good at football; enough that he knew that the Gotham U scouts who would be coming to next week’s game to check out the seniors would also be eyeing him.

It had been getting a lot colder out lately, and Mike tried to hurry home as quickly as he could, mentally noting which stores were looking for help. If they were desperate enough, he might be able to convince them to hire him under the table for the time being – he’d be sixteen soon, and then they could legally hire him, and he’d be already trained. It didn’t seem like a bad idea at all.

He finally reached their building in North Gainsly, a run-down apartment complex just a few blocks south of the river crossing. He ascended the stairs to their third story three-bedroom apartment where he lived with his mom and sister, noting along the way that Mrs. Horn was baking bread again, and he thanked God it wasn’t nearly cold enough outside for her to start making her weekly lutefisk dinners that stank up the entire building.

“Hey sweeties,” Maria Carter called out tiredly when he entered, the only light in their apartment coming from a dim lamp in the kitchen. She was reclined on the couch with a wet compress draped over her eyes.

“Hey mom,” he said, dropping his bag and leaning over the back of the couch to lift the cloth from her eyes. “Shel went to the mall with her friends. Hot or cold?”

“Hot, please – thank you, honey,” his mom said as he turned and took the cloth to kitchen to run it under the tap to warm it up. His mom had been having migraines lately, and it wasn’t an uncommon sight to come home to find her on the couch with the apartment dark. “What would you like for dinner?”

“It’s okay, mom, I can just make a sandwich or something,” he said, squeezing the excess water from the cloth and walking back over to the couch to hand it to his mother. “Want me to fix you anything?”

His mom laughed as she folded the cloth and pressed it back over her eyes. “I’m not sure if I’m quite used to the idea of you taking care of me, yet, Mikey. And thank you, but I’ll be fine; I’m not hungry.” Mike felt worried as she hadn’t been eating too much lately, either. He wished she would go to the doctor to see if anything was wrong, but neither of her jobs offered health care, and she insisted she couldn’t take a sick day anyway – it was just a headache, nothing to worry about.

Mike really wished he could speed up time and get a job, if only to help her out a little. It would also mean he wouldn’t have to swallow his guilt like he was doing now when he asked for money.

“Mom, I need some cash to go to the museum for an assignment for school,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“The museum? Didn’t you used to go there all the time for school?” she asked, and even in the dim light of the apartment, Mike could see her raising an eyebrow. “How much?”

“It’s ten dollars admission, I think,” he replied.

“Okay – my purse is on the counter, sweetie. Take a few extra dollars and get a snack while you’re there,” she said, waving her hand towards the kitchen.

But when Mike opened her wallet, he saw she only had two fives and four ones inside. A sinking feeling in his stomach, he only took the two fives and stuffed them into his back pocket. He then made himself a quick turkey and swiss sandwich, filled a bag with ice for his ribs, and turned off the lamp in the kitchen as he headed down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

“Thanks mom – I’m going to go watch some TV. Good night,” he called, heading back into Michelle’s room. She was the one with the TV, but technically the DVD player was his, so they had worked out an arrangement. He could go back to her room and watch movies when she wasn’t there, and in return he didn’t touch any of her stuff.

However, Mike always made it a point on each visit to rearrange the order of the clothes hanging in her closet or folded in her wardrobe – which, for some reason he never understood, always drove her up the wall. Sometimes he would search through her room to find her diary, and left it open on her bed (although he never actually bothered to read it, as she would always end up telling him everything in it anyway). He also would eat in her bed with the covers down; in fact, whenever he had chips or crackers, her bed was the only place he would eat them. Simple acts – hardly even worthy to be called pranks – but very effective when it came to aggravating Michelle.

Of course, she always got him back, especially on the mornings when he got the shower first; she’d pick the lock on the door, come in and flush the toilet, and then hold the door to the stall shut while he tried desperately to escape the searing hot water. Still, his sister didn’t have the initiative to do anything that wasn’t purely in revenge against something he did, and it was usually mean-spirited things like hiding his homework or putting a bag of cat turds in his locker at school.

As he sat on her bed, eating his sandwich and only marginally paying attention to the cartoons on her TV, he glanced around her room contemplatively. He hadn’t done anything really annoying to her in a while – hadn’t even gotten her back for the locker incident yet – which meant he really was down on his game. But still, there wasn’t much he could do to her that he hadn’t done already; at least, nothing that didn’t involve destroying her things, which he always drew the line at when it came to pranks.

He was actually feeling a bit let down at his lack of creativity when the phone rang, startling him out of his thoughts. He leaned over her bed to lift her pink phone from its cradle. “Hello?” he said.

“Is Michelle there?” a kid’s voice – a _boy’s_ voice asked from the other end.

“She’s busy right now. Who’s this?” he asked suspiciously, gathering the phone cord so that he could sit up.

“It’s, uh, it’s Kyle,” the voice said, and Mike racked his brains for any Kyles he knew. Kyle Rayner, maybe? “Can you get her for me?”

“What are you, her boyfriend?” Mike asked, suddenly angry that Shel hadn’t mentioned anything to him about having a new boyfriend.

“What’s it to you?” Kyle replied, also sounding angry. “Who are _you_?”

And just like that, an idea came to him. “Of all the – I can’t believe that bitch lied to me!” Mike snarled into the phone. “She never told me there was anyone else – I can’t believe it…” Mike let out a few more expletives before he suddenly started laughing.

“ _What_?” Kyle asked, seemingly bewildered.

“Joke’s on her, heh heh. Look, man, obviously you’re just as much a victim here as I am – she never told me about you. You haven’t kissed her yet or anything, have you?”

“I, uh, yes, but what does that have to do with anything? _Why are you laughing_?”

“Oh, man,” Mike replied, trying to sound apologetic. “Dude, trust me on this – go get yourself checked out. I tested positive last week, but I hadn’t had a chance to tell her. Don’t think I will, now, though. Hopefully you don’t have anything, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, you know?”

“ _WHAT_?!” Kyle shouted, but Mike was already leaning over to hang up the phone. He made sure Kyle heard him swear again before he set the phone on its cradle, and laid down on Michelle’s bed, arms folded behind his head. He smirked up at the boy band poster plastered to her ceiling, feeling very pleased with himself.

Maybe that was a bit mean compared to most of his pranks – but then again, she was the one who put cat shit in his locker.

 

***********************************************

 

For the rest of the week at school, he almost felt guilty for the prank he pulled on Michelle – even though they only shared three classes together each day, he kept an eye out for her in between classes and at lunch. It wasn’t hard to miss how she kept throwing Kyle Rayner hurt and confused gazes, and how her friends made consoling noises to her. Obviously Kyle hadn’t told anyone about the contents of their phone conversation, which actually earned him props in Mike’s book, or else Mike would have had to come clean about the prank before Shel’s reputation was completely ruined. But the relationship was clearly over between the two of them, and soon Mike was definitely feeling some remorse about that one. He knew he’d have to let her know about the prank eventually, but it could wait until Monday; maybe it wouldn’t be too late for her to patch things up with Kyle by then.

But other things had also occupied Mike’s thoughts that week – particularly the issue of Ted Kord. Not only was Kord in Mike’s history class, he was in _all_ of Mike’s classes except math. How in the hell had Mike been completely oblivious to Kord’s presence for a week? Sure, the kid had a plain appearance that was easy to overlook, and he sat behind Mike in all of the classes they shared, but Mike honestly could not remember any teacher ever introducing Ted Kord. Now that he knew Kord was there, he couldn’t help _but_ notice him.

Kord wasn’t particularly attractive – not in the way that Mike usually let himself be attracted to men, which was a rare case when it happened, and usually involved someone untouchable like a superhero. But on the flip side, he wasn’t unattractive either. But what drew Mike’s attention every single time was the way Kord smiled and how it made Kord’s blue eyes seem even brighter. And how - oh crap, he hated how he always sounded like such a girl when he thought about guys that way.

What didn’t help was the fact that Kord had apparently decided to be Mike’s friend. Which Mike couldn’t exactly complain over, because it gave him an excuse to be looking at Kord, and the boy had a sense of humor that was on par with Mike’s which made it very easy to joke around with to get Kord to crack a smile. It wasn’t a bad situation to be in at all. Kord was far from terrible company.

Even though Mike was a quarterback, he really didn’t hang out with much of the football team since they always wanted to hang out at places that cost money. Furthermore, though he was a sophomore, these were not the kids he had grown up with, so he didn’t have very many good friends at school except Michelle – who, as his twin sister, didn’t count. So it was nice to talk to someone about something besides football or whatever Michelle wanted to talk about for once.

The issue with Ted Kord was that Mike was almost certain he was developing a crush on the other boy; the first time Mike had ever really crushed on a boy his age. Kord was easy to talk to, smart but funny, didn’t seem like he was too likely to go into costumed villainy when he grew up (which was always a factor you needed to consider with anyone in Gotham), and had a mischievous way of thinking that almost rivaled Mike’s own.

For example, when Kord had told him how he was certain the school’s camera system hadn’t been patched in a year and there was a backdoor hack he knew about, there was really one good thing the boys could do with such an opportunity. Kord had even bought the bags of Lifesavers they needed and helped Mike sort through them to find all the clear white ones. Better yet, after disabling the cameras near the girls’ locker room before school one day, Kord was the perfect watchman for Mike as he snuck into the girls’ showers, removed all the shower heads and inserted the candies before screwing them back on. The best part was the fact that Kord split the remaining Lifesavers between the two of them – a metric shit-ton of candy - though Mike didn’t know where he could hide it at home as Michelle could sniff out any candy in a five hundred foot radius.

The results later that morning had been priceless – the girls who had first period P.E. had ended up going over to the boys’ locker room to wash the sticky mess off, and there had been shrieking and mass hysteria for a while before that. And, since Kord and Mike had second period P.E., the coach didn’t make them do anything to get sweaty since they couldn’t change their clothes with the girls using their locker room. So Kord and Mike had spent the whole period brainstorming new ideas in the bleachers, and had even made the pact to do a prank a week – although, Mike had made similar pacts with others before, and they had never panned out, so he was not expecting much to come of it. Still, for the first time in as long as he could remember, Mike was feeling a real connection to someone his age who wasn’t Michelle, and for the life of him, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason why he didn’t mind that it was geeky Ted Kord at all.

***********************************************

Mike felt nervous come Saturday as he stood outside Gotham Museum waiting for Ted to show up. All he had was the ten dollars for admission, and if Ted wanted to go do anything else…well, tough. He’d make his excuses and get out of there. And it’s not like he was looking forward to today – he’d been to this museum once a year for as long as he could remember. There was nothing in there he hadn’t seen before.

Still, why did it feel like he couldn’t wait for Ted to get here?

That black townscar Mike had seen Ted get into before pulled up in front of the museum, and Ted got out, leaning down to say something to the driver before shutting the door. He looked around for a moment, and Mike waved Ted over before stuffing his hands back into his coat pockets - the winter winds had decided to finally come full force into Gotham City that morning and it was freaking cold.

Ted jogged over and they ascended the museum’s steps together. Mike felt a moment’s apprehension before handing the ten dollars over for admission, but soon they were inside where it was warm, stuffy and, unfortunately, exceedingly boring.

Ted had a notepad with him and was jotting down little factoids that their tour guide would occasionally throw out to the crowd of twenty or so people as they shuffled through the museum. Mike had known Ted was a bit of a history buff given the way he paid attention in Garrett’s class, but it seemed he was really into this sort of thing more than Mike had realized. He couldn’t help but feel amused every time the guide would hurry them through a section before Ted could read every plaque. The boy would face a moment of clear indecision between finishing the exhibit he was reading or catching up with the group. By about the third time that happened, Ted had a permanent annoyed look on his face, and begun hanging back at the edge of the group with Mike.

“Mike, do you mind if we ditch the tour? I can’t stand this guy,” Ted said, waving his hand towards their guide. And indeed, the man was something on the eccentric side, and would spend great time detailing any sort of archaic weaponry and laud the glories of ancient battles on the tour while almost completely ignoring other artifacts (specifically the odd gadgets and tools that Ted seemed interested in). Enough so that Mike had already figured the guy had some sort of costumed alter ego that he ran around as at night – probably something stupid like the Museum Master or History’s Mystery or Administer of Antiquity or God knows what.

“Sure – they usually finish the tour up by three, so we can sneak back to the group before then for them to sign our tickets,” Mike said, grabbing Ted’s elbow and pulling him down towards the modern history wing while the group continued on towards ancient Egypt. “Let’s go check out the Hall of Heroes – I think they have something on the Green Lantern I hadn’t seen before.”

So they spent the next hour wandering around the museum’s heroes exhibits – and indeed, there was a new series of exhibits about Alan Scott, but it wasn’t anything Mike didn’t already know about, so it was only mildly disappointing. There were even some local heroes featured that Ted hadn’t heard of before, like the Blue Beetle, and Mike wondered if Chicago had heroes that he hadn’t heard of, either. Then Ted had dragged him back over to the ancient cultures exhibits so that he could check out some of the things they’d missed on the first time through, and it had gotten boring again. Ted had seemed to sympathize, and in his odd multi-tasking way had been making quips at Mike’s expense while he took notes – clearly trying to keep Mike entertained, if only through being aggravated.

“Ted, there are pamphlets in each section which describe this stuff for you; you don’t need to take notes,” Mike complained.

“Yes, but Mr. Garrett will _know_ about the pamphlets. He’ll be expecting us to have actually learned something while on the tour – which you’ll note, we’re no longer a part of, so I have to make extra sure I have enough notes,” Ted replied, the tone of his voice almost indicating that it was Mike’s fault they were no longer on the tour.

“ _You’re_ the one who wanted to ditch the tour – and anyway, this isn’t even part of the assignment. All you have to do is get them to sign off on the ticket and write a paragraph – _a paragraph!_ – about the museum. Even if you didn’t take the pamphlets, you’ve got more than a paragraph’s worth of notes there.”

“I’ll condense it down,” Ted said distractedly, scribbling into his notepad as he leaned over to get a better look at a primitive Roman tool that looked suspiciously like a torture device to Mike. “We have,” he glanced down at his watch, “an hour and a half before we need to catch up with the group. Relax, we’re almost to the medieval period – you’ll probably like that.”

Mike groaned loudly and wondered what he’d done that the Universe thought he deserved to be punished like this. Then he remembered the prank on Michelle and bit his lip.

Mike had been bored for another fifteen minutes or so before one of the security guards had come up and asked them what they were working on for school. Ted had pretty much ignored the man, but desperate for something else to do, Mike had struck up a conversation with the guard, and was surprised to find that being a security guard in Gotham Museum wasn’t nearly as boring as you’d think. Apparently the night shift had to deal with all sorts of crazies breaking in all the time, thinking that some piece of crap from ancient Sumer was actually the relic of some long dead man who _may_ have been a magician at some point. The guy said he’d even met Batman once, although he hadn’t talked to him, and Mike’s estimation of the guard job rose ten times upon hearing that.

Before he knew it, it was nearing three o’clock, and he waved his goodbyes to the guard and hauled a protesting Ted behind him towards the museum entrance. They’d managed to catch up with the tour group with only five minutes to spare, but if anything, Ted looked ready to go back to all of the exhibits they missed. But after they got their tickets signed, Mike dragged him out of the museum by the arm, more than ready to go home. He didn’t know why he had been so nervous this morning – this day had been as boring as he thought it would be.

“Ted, you can come back some other time and see everything else. I don’t think you’re supposed to read every single exhibit card all in one day,” Mike said, rubbing his hands together to keep warm as they stood at the top of the museum’s entrance stairway.

“Maybe, but I won’t get credit with Garrett for it,” Ted complained.

Mike stopped what he was doing and turned to stare at Ted, who did actually look upset. “Ted,” he said seriously, putting his hands on the other boy’s shoulders so that Ted would look him square in the eye, “I think we both know this goes well beyond a simple homework assignment.” He paused for effect. “You need help, man.”

Ted scowled and pushed him away and started to descend the steps. “Just because you aren’t interested in learning anything about _anything_ …”

“Hey, I know plenty about football – go on, ask me anything,” Mike said with a grin, knowing he had Ted beat there.

“Okay, who won the Super Bowl in 1974?” Ted challenged.

Mike opened his mouth to answer, and then realized he hadn’t had a clue. He closed his mouth, returning Ted’s scowl, but the boy had broken out with a grin by then.

“See? History can be useful.”

“Do _you_ know who won the Super Bowl in 1974?”

“Miami Dolphins,” replied Ted smugly.

“What? You’re just making that up. You don’t know who won,” Mike accused.

“I am not making that up. The Miami Dolphins won the 1974 Super Bowl.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“Are not.”

“See? I told you, I wasn’t making it up,” Ted said with a laugh.

“Goddamnit, Ted! That’s not what you were supposed to say!”

“This isn’t a cartoon, Mike, you can’t honestly believe it works like that…”

Mike muttered, but couldn’t help the grin from spreading on his face. They were walking towards the rail station, and Mike wondered if Ted was actually going to take the rail or was going to call his car. Mike didn’t have money for the rail and didn’t have a bus pass, so he’d have to make his excuses soon and start walking home before it got too dark and the weird people of Gotham came out of the woodwork.

“Hey, do you want to catch a movie?” Ted asked suddenly, causing Mike to stop short.

“I, um, sorry Ted, I didn’t bring any extra cash with me.” Mike stumbled through the words while trying to play it off cool.

“Ah, that’s okay, Mike. You kind of suffered through the museum with me today – I got you this time, you can get the next one,” Ted offered, that sincere smile on his face that made it hard for Mike to refuse.

“Well, okay, what do you want to see?” Mike asked, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of his head that told him there wasn’t going to be a next time until he got a job.

Ted paused, thinking, and then he actually looked sheepish. “Honestly, the only thing I want to see is that new Bruce Willis movie, but that’s rated R – there’s no way they’ll let us in to see that.”

Mike laughed. “Oh, man, don’t worry about that. You pay for the movie; I’ll get us in to whatever one you want to see.”

***********************************************

 

They ended up getting two tickets to some new Shia LeBeouf movie that neither of them had any interest in seeing, but which was incidentally playing at the same time as the new Willis movie. Ted had almost blown their cover while they tried to sneak into the R rated movie, though, as the kid had absolutely no poker face whatsoever. Mike swore Ted had been nearly hyperventilating when he was only buying the tickets, and but the cashier looked like she couldn’t care less about the kid freaking out.

The ushers, however, weren’t so easily fooled and Ted’s nervous looks had set the two boys in their target sights, making it impossible for them to enter the Willis movie under their watch. They ended up having to enter the movie they actually paid for at first, and then while the previews were showing, Mike left to go to the restroom and entered the other theatre when the ushers weren’t looking. Ted was supposed to wait a minute and follow, but they were nearly ten minutes into the movie before Mike saw him edging cautiously into the darkened theatre and rose to go grab the boy before he did anything else stupid.

But Ted had taken the opportunity to buy a bucket of popcorn for them, so Mike ended up being only amused by the situation instead of annoyed like he knew he would be with anyone else. And although the movie was loud and had lots of explosions, Mike couldn’t help but focus most of his attention on the fact that the small bucket seats forced Ted’s thigh to be pressed up against his, and how occasionally they wrestled each other’s arms away for the middle armrest. Every time there was a joke in the movie, the two of them would laugh and look at each other to see if the other was laughing, and Mike _really_ didn’t know what to think of that. So he stopped thinking, and just tried his hardest to enjoy the movie instead.

It was after seven o’clock by the time the movie was over and they were out of the theatre, and Mike was a bit apprehensive at not only how cold it was, but at how dark it was rapidly becoming. Still, he lingered with Ted outside of the theatre as they talked about scenes from the movie.

Ted eventually offered him a ride home. “I can call our car to come pick us up, and we could drop you off at your house. Where do you live?”

Mike felt his body tense up, but he forced a smile on his face. “North of here. It’s not far from the rail station so I was just going to take a train home,” he lied, but keeping the smile fixed. “But thanks for the offer.”

Ted got that look on his face once again, like he wasn’t quite sure if he believed Mike. “Well, I’ll walk with you to the rail station. I may as well just take the train home, too.”

Mike felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, but caught in the lie, he could do nothing but nod and turn away – the station was only a few blocks away. He’d have to think of some excuse by then.

They’d only gone a block and a half when he was distracted away from his thoughts as a piercing wail suddenly shrieked in front of them, and they saw three men come crashing out of a closed jewelry store, one of them carrying a bag slung over his shoulder, almost as if he were a parody of a classic thief with a sack of loot.

The streets always seemed to magically empty in Gotham whenever a crime went down – no one wanted to get involved because you never knew exactly what was going to go down. But clearly, no one was going to show up to stop these men from getting away. In that moment, Mike looked over at Ted, and Ted looked over at him – and without saying anything, both boys made the conscious decision that they weren’t going to stand by and do nothing. It was stupid and foolhardy, but none of the dangers flashed through Mike’s mind – only the idea of actually being a hero and stopping a crime in progress.

The boys ran after the men, and though Mike was used to running around after people, he was surprised that Ted more than able to keep up – even outstripping him. They quickly gained ground on the thieves, but then one of the men looked back and saw them.

“Shit, split up! Someone’s after us!” he heard one of them yell. One of them immediately turned left, running across the street and turning the corner, but the other two – including the one with the bag – dodged right into an alley. Mike and Ted skidded to a halt, ducking into the alley after the men. However, it seemed the alley came to a dead end in two hundred feet or so, and as the men turned back to face their pursuers, it was that moment that Mike began to have his doubts.

“Ah, shit, it’s just a couple of kids,” one of the men said, laughing. Mike felt something touch his arm, and he glanced sidelong at Ted, expecting to find the other boy hyperventilating, or worse. But no, Ted had a cool look on his face, and he looked at Mike, and then nodded towards one of the thugs. Mike would take the one on the left, Ted would take the other. Right; Mike got the bigger one.

“What, you kids thinkin’ tryin’ to stop us?” the smaller man said in a nasally voice. “Well, come on, then, try an’ take us down.”

Now, Mike was a quarterback, not a linebacker, but he certainly knew how to tackle. You got low, kept your head tucked down and your neck out of reach from your opponents knees, you wrapped your arms around their hips and pushed up and out with your legs – never your back, always with your legs. And had Coach been there to see Mike tackle that thug that easily outweighed him by a hundred pounds, well – well, Coach would have been pissed that Mike was trying to be a vigilante, but that was neither here or nor there. The fact was, the surprised man was lifted off of his feet for a moment, and that was all Mike needed to push him off balance and to the ground.

But Mike knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of keeping the guy pinned, so he was up in a flash, keeping his feet out of the way of the man’s grasp. He landed a sharp upwards kick on the man’s chin, the blow mimicking a swift uppercut that hit the “sweet spot” – and just like that, it was like someone had flipped a switch and the man was unconscious. Mike stared down at the thug, not quite believing what he had just done, stoutly ignoring the pain blossoming in his sides as his body reminded him that he _had_ gotten knocked around earlier that week, too.

He heard a loud crash behind him and spun around to help Ted out. Only, it looked like Ted didn’t need his help - Ted’s opponent was slumped against the dumpster, the boy standing over him with a brick in his hands and a bewildered look on his face. For a moment, the boys just stared at each other, breathing hard, before Ted started giggling nervously – and before they knew it, they were both laughing and walking towards the bag that the men had dropped.

“There’s no way it’s that easy – no way,” Ted was saying as he picked up the bag, before they both heard the ominous sound of a gun being cocked.

“It ain’t,” a voice said behind them, and they both turned slowly to find the third man – the one they thought had run off – standing at the entrance to the alley, staring them down with the gun in his hands pointed at them.

“I’d ask ya nicely fer the gems ya took from me, but ya know, I think I’d rather jus’ shoots ya,” the thug said snidely, and Mike felt the elation from their victory a moment ago rush away as dread settled in. “Better ta kill ya now before ya grow up thinkin’ ya can be heroes.”

“I don’t think so,” a gruff voice said, and they all had only a fraction of a second to register that it had come from above them before a dark form dropped down on the man, knocking the gun from his hands and slamming his head against the pavement.

A red figure likewise dropped down beside Ted, and Mike realized that they were being rescued by _the_ Batman and Robin. ‘Holy – holy hell…’ was all his brain could manage to think while he stood there, gaping like a fool.

They watched as Batman checked on the man Mike had knocked out while Robin likewise checked over Ted’s, before both set to quickly tying the men up. The man Batman had taken down was already tied up hog style at the front of the alley.

“Well, looks like you knocked them out pretty well,” Robin said as they finished up.

“Um, th-th-thanks,” Mike stammered while Ted made a slightly choked sound.

“We’re not thanking you. You almost got yourselves killed,” Batman said roughly, leveling the two of them with a dark glare that made Mike feel infinitely small and stupid. Batman checked the scene once over before motioning for Ted to give him the sack the boy was holding. Once Ted handed it over, he raised an arm and a grappling hook shot up towards the roof, and just like that, as soon as he had come, Batman disappeared up into the darkness.

Mike and Ted stared upwards after Batman for a few moments before a voice cleared and they realized Robin was still there.

“Not that I can’t understand wanting to help and all, but from now on, leave the heroing to the professionals. We may not be around to save you next time,” the boy said with a smirk, before raising his own grappling hook gun and likewise shooting off towards the rooftops. This time, instead of looking up in awe and shame, Mike couldn’t help but scowl.

“Wow, what a dick!” he finally blurted out, startling Ted beside him. The other boy seemed to look at him for a second in confusion, before his face mirrored Mike’s. Then in unison, both boys looked up, scowling, as if Batman and Robin were still around to see it.

“ _We_ took care of two of three bad guys, and _they_ are going to get all the credit for it!” Mike exclaimed angrily. “That is just so…”

“Yea, well,” Ted drawled, “the third one _did_ have a gun, Mike. Until we learn to dodge bullets, I think he might be right - maybe we had better stay out of this hero business. What were we even thinking, chasing after them like that?”

Mike ticked his tongue, annoyed, but conceding the point. “Yea, but with your smarts and my good ideas, I bet we could become a great team some day.” At Ted’s sidelong glance, he added, “Once we learn to dodge bullets. Or you develop technology to stop them, or something.”

Mike slung an arm over Ted’s shoulders, and the two of them strolled out of the alley (but not before Ted had delivered a solid kick to the thug who had held the gun on their way out) and continued on their way towards the rail station.

“What would we call ourselves?” Mike wondered.

“I think it’s a bit early to be thinking up personas, Mike,” Ted said, laughing. “We don’t even have any powers or particular skills besides my smarts and your ‘good ideas’. And I think those things are just supposed to happen to you; you don’t just make them up. That seems to be the way with real heroes, at least – well, the good ones, anyway. Except Batman, I suppose.”

“ _Screw_ Batman,” Mike muttered.

“Amen, bro.”

They’d finally reached the rail station and Mike had started making his excuses over losing his money in the scuffle and how he would be fine walking home, thanks, but Ted had just rolled his eyes and bought Mike a ticket on the north train before Mike had even realized what was going on. Mike had found himself grimacing when Ted handed him the ticket, but the excitement of the night’s events had erased any lasting embarrassment he may have had over his lack of funds.

They’d said their goodbyes inside the station, and Mike let himself think about the day that had gone by on the ride home. Sure, he had been bored out of his mind at the time, but in retrospect, the museum had been kind of fun. Even when there was nothing for him to do, it seemed easy to talk to Ted about, well, _anything_ and everything, even though they usually ended up talking about nothing. And even though Ted didn’t have anything approaching nerves of steel when they were sneaking into the theatre and he thought he would get caught, when it came down to it in the alley that night, he had been anything but a coward, leaping right into the fight alongside Mike without a moment’s hesitation. Add to the fact that Ted was a great partner when it came to pranks, and Mike was beginning to wonder where Ted Kord had been all his life.

 

***********************************************

 

Mike _knew_ Shel had been in too good of a mood as they walked to school together Monday morning, and he should have known something was up when she waved goodbye as they separated to go to their respective first periods, calling out, “Later, Booster!”

 _Booster_? What the hell did that mean?

He found out upon exiting his first period classroom to the hallway breaking out in applause, complete with whistles and jeers. He could only look around in confusion before he saw it, plastered on the wall across from him.

Michelle had found a picture of him from when he was seven years old, and they had been visiting their cousins in upstate New York. His aunt and uncle had had three kids under the age of five at the time, and unfortunately, when their aunt had picked them up from the airport, she had miscalculated the number of seats needed and hadn’t removed one of the booster seats in the back row. With their luggage in the back and the SUV otherwise full, they tried to see if one of the kids could fit in the booster seat for the drive home.

Mike had drawn the short straw, and unfortunately his mother had commemorated the occasion by taking a picture of his oversized body strapped into the tiny kid’s seat while he glared mutinously at the camera. It was also the age he had really been into Aquaman, and unfortunately one of the manufacturers of kids’ clothing then had produced a pair of pants that mimicked the lower half of Aquaman’s costume. Coupled with the Superman shirt he wore almost everywhere at the time…and…yeah, it was just about the most embarrassing childhood picture Mom had of either of them.

He _really_ thought he’d gotten Mom to destroy that picture even though she claimed it was her favorite. Either she’d lied, or Michelle had squirreled away a copy for future blackmail material. At any rate, as he looked up and down the hallway, he could see literally hundreds of copies of the image blown up on letter paper, complete with the caption of ‘Michael “Booster” Carter, age 7’.

Great…just…great. Michelle must have figured out the Kyle thing – that, or she was taking surprising initiative, which he doubted. His suspicions were confirmed as he saw her waving to him from down D hall with Kyle Rayner’s arm wrapped securely around her waist.

Well, it wasn’t like he hadn’t had it coming, he supposed.

He didn’t even bother to respond to any of the taunts that the other kids called out to him as he trudged his way towards P.E. class. Ted, however, did meet him outside of the locker room with a serious look on his face.

“Mike, I think we found your hero name,” he said solemnly, before he found himself unable to hold back any longer and broke down laughing.

“Oh, shut up. I am _not_ going by the name Booster. Agh,” he groaned, leaning against the wall near Ted, covering his head with his hands. “Ted, you need to hurry up and invent time travel or something. Seriously, man, how am I going to recover from this?”

“What did you ever have to recover in the first place?” A pause as Mike flipped him off. “What’d you do to your sister, anyway?” Ted asked, and literally fell over laughing after Mike told him the story. “Oh, okay man, I’m sorry – you deserve this one.”

“Shut _up_. What are we going to do?”

“We? What do you mean _we_? I don’t need to get on your sister’s bad side.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be a team, here?”

“Well, yeah, in history…”

“ _And_ in fighting crime. And let me tell you, Ted, there was most definitely a crime committed here today.”

“True,” Ted said contemplatively. “And I suppose we are a team in something much greater than history assignments or fighting crime. Something that will get people to stop talking about you.”

Mike peeked through his fingers to look over at Ted, who was looking over at him conspiringly. Ted’s eyes quickly darted up, and Mike followed his gaze. Slowly, Mike’s hands fell as eyes widened and his lips parted almost reverently.

“We’ll have to get a lot of dye.”

“That won’t be too hard, but it will have to be something that will come out when it dries, of course,” Ted added.

“Of course,” repeated Mike faintly.

“What color did you have in mind?”

“Well, red is probably a bit too traumatic, so that’s right out. I like green. Green’s my favorite color,” and Mike wasn’t quite sure why he’d said that, “but green is South Central’s primary color, and we play them this week, so that might send the wrong message.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that.” Ted laughed. “Well, speaking of the game, the school colors _are_ blue and gold.”

Mike wrinkled his nose. “Gold would be traumatic, too. Plus, I don’t know if it would dye correctly, anyway.”

“Blue it is, then,” said Ted, holding out his hand to Mike. “We’re going to have to play hooky to get this done by the end of the day, you know.”

Grinning, Mike took Ted’s hand and shook it, making the plan official. “It’s not like I was going to learn anything today, anyway.”

 

***********************************************

 

They found out later that night, sequestered at Ted’s place, that their prank had made the nightly news. Clips were shown of kids soaking wet with their clothing completely dyed blue gathering in the parking lot outside Gotham West. Apparently, as the anchorman reported, some devious youngsters had added blue dye to the school’s sprinkler system, and then set off the fire alarms during lunch. The sprinklers had rained down blue water for a good five minutes before the school administrators had managed to shut them off, and while initially some people were estimating property damage in the millions, someone had eventually realized that the dye dissolved clearly when dried, leaving not a trace of color to be found. Furthermore, the pranksters had shut off the water in sprinkler system to the whole building _except_ the ones in the cafeteria, which the fire chief had told the media he found to be the most disturbing thing of all.

“Clearly, the school’s security systems need to be looked into. Had there been, God forbid, an arsonist who set fire to the school, that he could enable or disable certain sprinklers anywhere without anyone catching him is an extreme breach of security,” the fire chief had said.

Last week, the media went on to report, the surveillance system was tampered with when another prank happened, and that the same method was used once again to disable the security cameras such that the school had no idea who had committed these pranks. That no one in the week following the first prank had thought to update the security software was, frankly, unbelievable to anyone the reporters interviewed.

As a result, the Superintendant shut down the school for the next two days to give the maintenance staff time to clean out the cafeteria and to also have the school district’s IT department update the security systems as well as the fire department inspect the sprinkler system. Gotham West would have to make up the extra days at the end of the year, but to Ted and Mike, the results of their efforts could be counted as more than a victory.

“Ted, this was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. There is no way no one is going to talk about me now, and the janitors will clean up all the fliers Shel made by then,” Mike said, leaning back on Ted’s bed as the boys watched the television in Ted’s room.

Ted lived with his mom in a studio loft in downtown Gotham, well in Gotham South Central’s school district despite the fact that he attended Gotham West. “Mom wanted me to go to West since that’s where she went to high school when she grew up in Gotham. Since I came mid-year, they really didn’t care where I went since it’d be equally troubling for everyone,” Ted had explained earlier.

A lot of bigshots lived nearby, too – apparently even Bruce Wayne owned a loft in this building, although Ted said he didn’t think Wayne ever used it. Mike had wanted to ask about Ted’s dad – obviously if his mom had gone to West, she wasn’t old money, and Ted had said she didn’t work, so his dad must be the rich one in the family – but he was afraid Ted would ask about _his_ dad, and that wasn’t really a conversation he wanted ruining this otherwise great day.

“It’s too bad. I kind of liked the name Booster,” Ted said, twisting around to flash Mike a grin.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Okay, _you_ can call me Booster if you like it so much. Not around anyone else, though, and definitely not at school,” he added, narrowing his eyes at Ted.

“You know that’s not going to happen. You _know_ I am going to use it at every available opportunity you give me, Booster.”

“Please remember who got us into the R movie –“

“Which _I_ paid for _and_ got us popcorn –“

“ – and who thought to use clear Lifesavers for the shower heads instead of giving the game away immediately by mixing in the other colors –“

“- which I’m sure is not even your original idea anyway, and which I also paid for _and_ disabled the cameras so you wouldn’t get caught –“

“ – _and_ who actually tackled his bad guy instead of using a prop –“

“ – and that adventure almost got us shot. Not that I regret that or anything,” Ted hurriedly added when Mike pushed himself up on his elbows to glare down at Ted.

“I’m just saying – you need me,” Mike stated, before flopping back down and tucking his hands behind his head, grinning smugly at the ceiling.

He could hear Ted spluttering. “I don’t - I don’t _need_ you – I could have done all of those things on my own!”

“No you couldn’t have. You either would have screwed it up or got caught or got your ass kicked. Admit it – you need me around if you’re ever going to make it big in this world.”

Okay, maybe that was stretching it a bit, but damned if Mike wasn’t feeling particularly pleased with himself tonight. His ribs didn’t even hurt anymore.

“Well – well – you need me just as much!”

Mike sat back up on his elbows and raised an eyebrow down at Ted. Still, he grinned and shrugged. “True.”

Ted had clearly been expecting him to deny that, because that promptly shut the other boy up. Mike had a laugh at Ted’s expression and sat up so that they were eye to eye.

“So that’s it, then,” Ted said slowly, “we’re a team.”

“I thought we already _were_ a team,” Mike teased.

“Yea, but, you know – maybe we should be thinking up names or something. You know, aliases, even if nobody else knows.”

“No, you were right earlier – this stuff has to come to you, you can’t go looking for it. We’ll know it when it’s right. Otherwise, it kind of feels like you’re jinxing yourself, you know?”

“Still calling you Booster, though,” Ted said, leaning over to give Mike a shove. Mike shoved him back, and before he knew it they were wrestling each other on Ted’s bed, laughing. Mike gained the upper hand, pinning Ted down, but that was when Mike made a terrible mistake – not even thinking, he leaned down suddenly and kissed Ted squarely on the lips.

Ted froze. Mike froze. Time crawled to a stop as the two of them stared, cross-eyed at each other, their lips still touching but neither of them really kissing. Then Mike jerked back away from Ted, trembling, his stomach clenching, wanting the ground to open up and swallow him. Ted just stared up at the ceiling for a moment before sitting up calmly. “Mike…that was not the kind of team I was talking about.”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Ted, I’m sorry –“ Mike babbled, unable to hold back the dread building in his heart. He’d gone and fucked it up. Why had he done that? He hadn’t even thought to do it – he’d just done it. Finally he’d found a good friend and what had he gone and done? Kissed him. Brilliant. Just _fucking_ brilliant.

Mike continued to babble apologies, but Ted finally smiled and held up his hand to placate Mike. “It’s okay, Mike, I’m not upset. I’m not mad. It’s okay.”

“You’re not upset?” Mike repeated, voice faint.

“No, I’m not – I guess I should have expected this. What with you being, you know,” he lowered his voice for the next word, “gay and all.”

Mike’s jaw dropped, his fear quickly replaced with surprise. “I – what? Where did you –“

“It’s okay, Babs told me all about it.”

Mike could feel his heart skipping a few beats and his eyes widened. “Babs – as in Barbara? Barbara Gordon told you I was gay?”

“Well, yea. I mean, I told her I was paired with you in history, and she’s best friends with your sister and all, and she just, you know, told me.”

Mike let out a long, low moan. “ _Barbara Gordon_ told you I was _gay_ ,” he repeated, covering his eyes with his hands. “Shel must have – oh, _Shel_ ,” he snarled viciously.

“What?” Ted asked, the conversation clearly not going anywhere he was expecting.

“I see that have done Michelle a disservice, Ted,” Mike said solemnly, sitting up straighter and folding his hands in his lap. “I thought she wasn’t a worthy opponent, and I’ve pulled my punches all of these years. Hell, I even felt _bad_ for her after the Kyle thing, and I figured today was her settling the score. Well, now I can see clearly that the score is _not_ even. There’s quite a bit more that I owe her.”

“Pardon?” Ted asked, giving him a look that indicated he thought Mike had lost it.

“Ted, I’m not gay.”

“You’re not g – but you just kissed me!”

“Yes, yes, okay, _yes_ I did just kiss you, but that is beside the fact. I am most certainly _not_ gay. I like girls,” he added defensively.

“So you like both girls _and_ boys,” Ted elaborated for him.

“Well, some boys, yes, sometimes,” Mike explained. “Not always. It depends. Look, that’s not the issue here.”

“It’s not?”

“No, the issue here is that my sister told the girl I have had a crush on since, like, _forever_ , that I was gay – that’s the issue, Ted.”

And then a dawning look of horror overcame Ted, and he nodded in slow understanding at Mike. “I see. That _is_ an issue. What are we going to do about it?”

“We? You’re still –“

“I’m still your friend, Booster, even if I’m pretty sure I don’t like you in that - in that way,” Ted said, blushing.

“You’re _pretty_ sure? What does that even mean?”

“It _means_ that I don’t know if I like - I mean, I’ve never even kissed a girl, yet. How am I to know if I like kissing another guy or not?”

“Well, it’s not rocket science, Ted, you either liked it or you didn’t.”

“Well what does that have to do with anything? I can’t know until I’ve kissed a girl, too, you know, to compare. I mean, what if I find out I didn’t like either of them? What if I’m asexual?” A panicked look overcame Ted’s face as he said that.

Oh, Christ Almighty. “Ted, do you want me to kiss you again to see if you like it?”

“NO! No! I’m just saying…I want to kiss a girl before I draw any conclusions.”

“You’re never going to get a girl if you try to science your way through it, Ted.”

“I don’t know about that. I mean, Babs is kind of nerdy, too, even if she _is_ a cheerleader. I can see her kissing in the name of science.”

Mike smirked. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Ted.”

“Oh, why not? She’s yours, huh?”

He couldn’t hold back his laugh at that, but shook his head. “I hear she’s Grayson’s girl.”

“ _Grayson_? As in Dick Grayson?” Ted gave Mike a dubious look. “I don’t know. I bet I could take him.”

Mike rubbed his face with his hand and said, “Look, I’m sorry about the kissing thing, it won’t happen again. Unless you want it to, anyway. But if not, I’m not going to hold it against you. Well,” he paused, leering at Ted, “unless you want me to.” Ted rolled his eyes. “The point I’m trying to make here, is…well. I’m just happy to be you friend, Ted.”

Ted looked for a moment like he wanted to crack a joke at what Mike had just said, but instead, he shook his head and smiled, extending a hand forward. “I’m good with being friends, Booster. But please, let’s not have these kinds of heart to hearts anymore until we’re old enough to get drunk. I feel like I’m about ready to turn in my man card.”

Mike grinned, clasping Ted’s hand in a firm grip. “Deal.”


End file.
